Matt Ragland runs the Chattanooga Chase on Memorial Day and gets beaten in the final stretch by a 10-year-old. After finishing in 41 minutes, he reflects on what Memorial Day actually means, inspired by a conversation with a veteran named Hap.
Chapters
Morning, doing the Chattanooga chase. It's Memorial Day in about an hour and my hair is up. I'm not quite there yet. No respect for authority. Abby Flonzie, your sign. So I biked over here. It's registration. About 700 people, they said. It'll be fun. It's always nice to, you know, get out and do something early in the morning even though it's 8 o'clock. Got a cool shirt. It is a good shirt. But since I biked, I don't really know what to do with it. Do you just leave it hanging on the bike itself and hope no one jacks it? I mean, everyone else theoretically should have a shirt. Decided to leave it. Maybe I'll fool people into thinking it's a poorly designed water bottle. The likelihood I'm gonna pop this tank off is extremely high, and so I don't want two shirts dangling behind me, phone flapping in my pocket. I'm gonna be a mess. Also very likely that I'm gonna have to poop about 4 minutes in. I missed the start, but I pooped, so here we go. Off to Let's do it. Looking good. Basically started last. Probably at about 3.5 miles. I don't know. I don't have a watch, so I don't know how long I've been going. 3/8, says the man in front of me. What a nice guy. 4-mile mark. It's probably a 10-year-old up there that is whipping my ass. Alright, all done. Ran about 41 minutes, but I didn't time myself and I didn't start on time. The kid though that I pointed out that was like 10 and kept like yo-yoing with me just totally annihilated me on the last 100 meters. I had no hope. Even if I wanted to kick more than I did, he just blasted me. Kid headed for great things. Now of course the question is, 2 beer or not 2 beer? Beer. Weird though, you know how there's always like bananas and water at the end? There's not. The closest thing to us— I feel like this is what I have to do, right? Cheers to me. I think it replaces the carbs, right? That's what I'm going for. Working. Gelato. Strawberry tangerine. It's amazing. All right, shirt was still here. Told you. Cool looking shirt. Very nice. Before we go, it is Memorial Day, and I just want to remind everyone something that I was reminded of several years ago by a guy I used to work with named Hap. And Hap was a veteran, and I told him one day, I was like, "Hey Hap, Happy Memorial Day." He's like, "What's so happy about it?" And it really, really threw me because I really respected— and respect— Hap, and he's like, you know, Matt, Memorial Day is in memorial of people who died in active service. So don't tell me happy Memorial Day. Say thank you to me on Veterans Day. Memorial Day is for people who have died in service. So think about that. If you know anyone who has served, just say thank you. If especially you know anyone who has had a family member or a loved one or someone they care about die in service, especially say thank you to them because that's, that's what Memorial Day is for. So think about that today. Think about how for a lot of us, still, still incredible to live in America, to have, you know, stuff like this you just go out and do on any, on any kind of day. Like, this isn't a, this isn't a special thing. This is just, this is just American. There's all kinds of people there, and I just had beer and chicken wings, and it was a great day. So hope you have a great day and see you next time.
